Religion Dispatches
…entage of the cases worldwide, in part because Scicluna states that between 1975 and 1985, “I do not believe that any cases of pedophilia committed by priests were brought to the attention of our Congregation.” What he’s saying here is that they never saw the extent of these cases because they were handled on the diocesan level—much like the case of Father Hullermann, that Benedict (then still a Cardinal) is accused of mishandling. Ponder that. In…
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…ileged rights to Native American land, including the Monroe Doctrine and an 1823 Supreme Court decision in the case of Johnson v. McIntosh, which declared that the “discovery” of America by Christian nations gave them the “sole right of acquiring the soil.” As Steven Newcomb, cofounder of the Indigenous Law Institute, has noted, the 1826 Tennessee Supreme Court decision Cornet v. Winton upheld the Christian colonialist underpinnings of the Johnson…
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…, but IHOP officials tell him about the ambitious goals they have for their 1,000-person staff: a vision of one million new Christian soldiers who will win one billion souls—and raising one trillion dollars to make it happen. They tell young followers, “You’re going to take over the world by the power of the Holy Spirit.” It’s clear that much of the power American culture warriors have in Uganda comes from the money their ministries pour into the…
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…ken a much more adversarial stance to LGBT acceptance. However, increasing numbers of evangelical churches are accepting LGBT individuals as members. This development is not without its opponents, however. Many evangelical organizations—most significantly colleges, universities and seminaries—are mobilizing to retain their “religious right” to discriminate against LGBT individuals. More than 30 evangelical higher education institutions have petiti…
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…Muslims, and others) and absurd claims about global politics. More than the 1988 campaign (or the subsequent partnership of his lieutenant in this campaign, Ralph Reed, in the criminal schemes of Jack Abramoff) this case dramatizes the moral bankruptcy of alliances between the NCR and neoconservative power brokers. 1) The top of my list revealed: What could top such a list? Since we’re on the subject of disasters today, we might have noted how, am…
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…nd here story of the two catastrophes differs drastically. In fact, between 1793 and 1801 the people we now call Haitian pulled off a successful slave revolt against nothing less than the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. On an August evening in 1791, either before or during the revolution (depending on when you date the revolution’s beginning), slaves performed a voodoo rite, Robertson’s “pact with the devil.” That the dominant tradition existing alo…
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…dard stuff—the stories that kept coming up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJQr1Go9ldw&t=2s You work as an actor, a writer, a comedian, in a lot of creative spaces. What’s the line between free speech and bigotry? Wow. What is the line between free speech and bigotry? Look, there’s always going to be free speech, and it’s a fundamental right. We are allowed to speak our minds. But bigotry will always exist—there will always be a certain amount of…
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…more effective if it were honest. And perhaps that would have lessened the number of death threats and other vile correspondences she has received. Second, others have said that she deserved the criticism for its political harm, that this hurts the Democratic party. Perhaps, but that doesn’t make much sense either, because the manufactured outrage made it worse. If a Democratic leader had privately contacted her and said, “Ilhan, you have to clari…
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…clear violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment and any number of Supreme Court cases. He was removed again last year for refusing to uphold federal law on same sex marriage, on the grounds that it was in violation of God’s law as found in the Old Testament. Like Winthrop, Moore believes that the Old Testament should order American society, whether Exodus or Leviticus. The ancient Israelites in these societies either adhered, or…
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…y to hide the fact. That was obvious as far back as the Persian Gulf War of 1991 when Israel was hit with a number of Iraqi missiles the Israeli government, which always boasts that it will respond harshly to any attack, did nothing because Washington put up a big red light. Washington appears to be flashing the red light once again. According to the Washington Times, “a senior Israeli official said that Israel has not asked for US aid or permissi…
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